


Snake Charmer

by theunchartedgalaxies



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Implied Hux/Kylo Ren, M/M, Star Wars: The Last Jedi Trailer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-17 22:36:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13086846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theunchartedgalaxies/pseuds/theunchartedgalaxies
Summary: After Starkiller is destroyed, after Kylo bleeds and Hux has to pick up the pieces, after the hell and the loss and the agony, some things still manage to stay the same.





	Snake Charmer

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by how detached Kylo seemed to be in the trailer for The Last Jedi. 
> 
> Sadly, I don't own these characters and am not claiming to with this work.

He was so different, now.

The rage in him had been bisected as neatly as his face, had splintered into incomprehensibly small pieces until they were light enough to scatter like dust. No wicked shadows danced in his eyes. It was as if his very character had rushed out of his body like the blood from his wounds, scattered about his body like constellations. There was a strength emanating from his motionless body still, though lacking in rawness - it was as grimly set and unwavering as Kylo’s lips.

“Hux,” he whispered, hoarsely, his throat likely still scrubbed raw by his screams. Hux wasn’t sure what his tone carried. The low grumble of a warning, a wary invitation to approach. He strode through regardless, figuring that a quick death at the end of Ren’s trembling hands was better than the embarrassment he faced for what had befallen Starkiller Base. His footfalls were impossibly loud, but the machines continued their sequence of soft whirs and beeps regardless. He tried to swallow his distaste: it seemed everything in the galaxy had lost their fear of General Armitage Hux.

Kylo was laying on his back, surprisingly alert eyes studying the durasteel ceiling through eyelids purple with fatigue. His body was wrapped so fully in thick bandages that the droids had neglected providing him with a shirt. They were blissfully off-white, uncharacteristically absent of blood. Hux had found that they had had that in common, tearing their wounds open with blood-caked fingers just to relive the burning pain. To punish themselves in a way that they hoped someone else would. A heavy sadness gripped his throat. A man, a _lord_ , so full of that seething anger that the First Order feasted upon, reduced to _this_. Bound to this prone state not only by the wires and tubes blossoming from his skin but his own crushing failure.

Hux ripped apart the sorrow with a violent clearing of his throat. “You-” _-are alive. -scared me. -mean so much to me. I thought I had lost you. -were so heavy in my arms that I thought I would collapse, and we would die together in the snow. Would that have been better?_ Everything charged into him with a staggering force, and he coughed again from the sudden lack of air in his lungs. Tears pricked at his eyes. _Stars_ , he had lost so _much_ -

“Hux,” Kylo repeated, stronger but still quivering. “Why are you here?” The deep thunder of Ren’s voice was more soothing than any drugs he had been cramming down his throat and far too overwhelming all at once. He felt like he would careen to connect with the floor in a heap of sharpened edges and defeat. It was so easy to pretend it was all okay, yet scream for all he had lost simultaneously.

“It’s-” he broke, he swallowed, he tried again, “all over,” he breathed, catching himself before he swayed on his feet. How long had it been since he had eaten? He couldn’t remember the last rest he had gotten that wasn’t a mere handful of minutes sitting upright in a chair. It felt like he hadn’t seen the comforting darkness behind his own eyelids for decades. The blank stare that collided with his own was chilling. Hux wasn’t one who spoiled himself with wishful thinking, but he had often suspected that Kylo Ren had cared for him, too. It was bizarrely comforting to have his dark form matching his pace stride for stride, to know that all it took was the thrust of a gloved hand to silence anyone that challenged Hux, that he was one of the few who had ever seen Kylo’s face - so open, so unfiltered, as raw as the supposed power that trembled in his fingertips. But now - the world started to slide again before he righted it with a swift shake of his head - but now he seemed to be dressed all in the regal cruelty befitting a Sith lord of old. He was so _fucking disconnected_ -

“You are just as dead as everything else.” His voice was smooth, cold. He was a general. His voice had never failed him, had always been as striking as a lightning bolt colliding with the earth with all its might. He wanted his distaste to pour from over his lips with hellish intensity. He wanted Kylo to _drown in it_.

Something flashed in the brown depths of Kylo’s weightless stare, and Hux felt the fire in him begin to roar. He swore to himself he would sever whatever bastardized form a bond they had developed throughout their service aboard the _Finalizer_. He cast aside that ravenous aching agony that was gnawing on his heart with a disdainful swat. It’s all over, he had whimpered, like a child that had watched it’s pitiful world collapse before it. He would make sure that everything had met a demise as explosive of his beloved base. “To think you were _something_. An asset, perhaps, but an _ally_?” His chuckle was as dark as a starless night sky. Hux curled his fists, heard the leather scream. Parted his lips for another raging volley-

“You thought differently as you dragged me through the snow,” Kylo stated, as plainly as the anger bubbling at the corners of his mouth. And this was how they danced, Hux realized. They pulled one another out of the rubble of themselves like a snake charmer with a deadly cobra, playing hypnotic notes while covered in dust. Venom sparkled on their teeth but neither one cared. They reared and struck each other down with their poison-tipped words, fighting and clawing until nothing but their fury kept their shaking limbs from collapsing. It was brutal, yet wickedly efficient. Hux doubted they could have worked better any other way. He nearly suppressed his snort, but thought better of it. It came out dry and raspy, devoid of any humor. “You’ve come back to me covered in blood that isn’t entirely just that of your enemies. You’ve come back limping and bruised and hardly able to hold the weight of your own head up. I _pitied_ you. Bested by a mere scavenger that lived in the sands of Jakku.” He looked at him and tried to make his gaze as hard as his walls that were keeping Kylo out of his head. “Get a hold of yourself, Ren. You’ve survived worse. ”

He saw the rumblings of violence underneath Kylo’s skin. Murder flickered in his eyes, briefly, but it was all the spark Hux needed. Kylo would make it. He nearly sighed in relief, wanted to praise the sky while being lashed by a cold rain. For the first time after the Starkiller splintered into the galaxy, General Hux felt like he had a semblance of control.

“So have you,” Ren growled, as low and guttural as Hux had become familiar with.


End file.
